The Primal Hunter

To kick or not to kick. That is the question.

Well, alright, it wasn’t really a question but just Jake’s default way of handling any opponent he met in the arena. He knew full well that the situation couldn’t continue forever, but for now, his stats just outmatched everyone else by quite a margin.

It quickly became apparent that most of his opponents didn’t even have 10 in all stats, much less 16 in even their lowest, like Jake. This meant Jake thoroughly beat any and all opponents he met just by easily overpowering them. He was – metaphorically speaking - an adult professional fighter beating up a bunch of kids to quickly advance in ranks. If simply skipping ranks was possible, he would have gone for that, and on the third day, Jake even tried to ask the Battlemaster if it was possible to meet some higher-ranked opponent for a promotion match. To which the middle-aged man answered in a totally not judgemental tone:

“Oh, I am sure you would want that. Hey, do you think anyone else here wants the same? You’re confident, so surely that is enough, right? What complaints could your opponent possibly have for getting matched with some low-rank opponent who doesn’t even pull in a good audience? Surely, the fight itself would also go without a hitch, and with a victory, there would to so much glory in beating someone several ranks below yourself. And who would possibly feel humiliated if they lost to someone expected to be so much weaker than themselves? Yeah, definitely no one, so let me do you a favor here and now and change the centuries-old rules of the Colosseum just because you don’t feel like advancing the usual way! Who needs proper rules and a ranking system anyway? So old-fashioned. Having everyone fight everyone would be so much more exci-“

Jake cut him off after that, having gotten the point. The Battlemaster was a bit short with him the rest of the day after that, but luckily he was back to normal the next morning. However, during his first match on the fourth day, he found himself in an odd situation.

Standing ready behind the lowering gate, Jake looked at his beastkin opponent. She was a woman who was nearly two meters tall and had metal claws strapped to her hands. She definitely looked menacing and ready to pounce.

“Combatants, enter the arena!”

The moment the gate lowered, he walked forward as his opponent charged, yelling loudly:

“Heard you’re good at kicking! Let’s see you kick my claws, you pathetic human!”

With an annoyed frown, Jake looked at her and decided to get the fight over with right away. He even felt a surge of killing intent due to her comment as he considered employing the secret technique known as the dropkick. His eyes met with hers… and then things got weird. Right as their eyes met, she came to an abrupt stop and jumped back with wide eyes, hair standing up on her back.

Jake stood confused as she stared at him for a moment. Her sneer was gone, and her form lowered as she slowly backed away, looking perplexed. Jake took a step forward, making her jump back as she yelled loudly.

“I surrender!”

Wait, what?

More confused than before, he wanted to ask the beastkin what the hell was going on… but before he even properly registered that the fight was over, she had run out of the arena faster than she had arrived. Jake had no idea what was going on initially… until he got an idea.

In the next fight, he tested his theory.

Jake considered something he hadn’t really thought much of for a long time. Everyone had an instinct; he knew that. It was natural, and while the enlightened races tended to have weaker ones than beasts, it was still there, with beastkin often having instincts often comparable to or even surpassing some beasts. Why did this matter?

to its peculiar effects. This leakage of presence back then didn’t really

ran on sight. Even after coming back from the Tutorial, when he claimed

around his own level of power without using Pride of the Malefic Viper, even if he had a powerful Bloodline. Not because it was less powerful than before but because people had learned to resist it. The only way he could have turned his Bloodline-empowered presence into an actual attack would have been to actively infuse it with energy and do something akin to Pride. The problem with that was how ineffective it was, and even if the quality was high due to his Bloodline, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to people he wanted to

was to intimidate people and flex your power. Semi-uniquely for Jake, he could also use it to train others to resist presences faster, but he had found that just being around him seemed to do the job, though it was

he could tell. They didn’t have any exposure to powerful presences and thus had no resistance. Partly related to this was the second reason: everyone’s souls were weak. The third difference was Jake himself, who had realized

to his Bloodline. The instinctual response it instilled in anyone who wanted to fight him.

Jake made a human guy piss himself in his next match as he unleashed his full presence and murderous intent. He even infused mana into it right as the match began, scaring the poor guy shitless. The experiment

aspect of his presence: Suppression. No, calling

Fear.

the system. It was the kind of fear that solicited a response from his foe. One that triggered fight or

fear gripped her, she didn’t retreat. No, she chose to fight. However, she was unable to keep calm and

Jake once more tried to experiment as he wanted to work on something else. Because he did have one other skill that he felt was at least tangentially related to the

of the

was also why he

Its effects in E and C-grade were effectively identical, and in both grades, it barely took any energy. In fact, it took a proportionally minuscule level of

infuse anything related to his Bloodline when using Gaze… but who is

eyes of the

Apex Hunter had come from the fusion of Hunter’s Sight and Gaze of the Apex Predator. Jake earlier considered how he infused instinctive fear into his

fallen prey. The Apex Predator has grown to where their foes

version of Gaze? One that was probably far weaker but had some of the same concepts, at least. This was also one of the purposes of the Challenge Dungeon based on Jake’s estimations; to allow the ones doing it to truly reflect upon their paths and skills. Gaze was a prime candidate for some kind of

spent the next many matches experimenting with trying to incite instinctual fear in his opponents. Many fights still ended with him kicking his foe either because he failed or because the person resisted the fear effect. Sometimes it also just made them mad.

Jake continued his six matches a day – five regular fights and one promotion

had spent some time checking out other areas of the Colosseum with all the downtime

In the last two matches, he had to use dozens of kicks to achieve victory, and he even ended

match would be the end of his kicking-only spree. At this point, he continued just

quickly checked his

objective: Be promoted from Journeyman Fighter to

rank: Journeyman Fighter

Colosseum Points: 765